Loxodonta Africana Research Paper

Loxodonta africana, more often known as the African elephant, is the largest land animal on Earth, with a shoulder height of 11 feet, a length of 19-24 feet, and a weight of 6 tons (African, 2014). These enormous creatures are also capable of communicating with each other in a unique way. Elephants use infrasound calls to “talk” amongst themselves. Infrasounds are sounds that have frequencies lower than what humans and most other animals are capable of detecting. The scientific discovery of these infrasounds makes researches one step closer to understanding how these gentle giants communicate with one another, even when they are kilometers apart.

Due to poaching for their ivory, African elephants are becoming an endangered species. Because of this, they can be found today primarily in game reserves or in national parks. They were originally found on the southern tip of Africa, from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic coast of Africa. African elephants occupy different habitats, ranging from semi-desert areas to mountain regions to grasslands or forest areas. Specifically, African elephants are most often found in the Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests, the Miombo woodlands, or the Acacia savannahs (Elephants, 2014).

Elephants use infrasound calls to communicate with one another over a larger distance. Katharine Payne, an acoustic biologist, was one of the first researches to study communications between elephants. She spent a week in May of 1984 at the Washington Park Zoo in Portland, Oregon observing and listening to the elephants. She described her experience with the elephants communicating, saying that it “had been like the feeling of thunder but there had been no thunder. There had been no loud sound...

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In the lab, the researches were able to recreate sound similar to that of elephants’ infrasonic calls in the lowest-pitched vibration. However, they were not able to capture all of the complexities of a real elephant call. Although the research does not completely explain how elephants are capable of their calls, it suggests that the mechanism is similar to a person speaking or singing (Milius, 2012).

African elephants are the gentle giants of the Earth. Research has revealed that they use a very unique mechanism of communication. Infrasound calls allow the elephants to communicate with one another over a large distance. Researches are close to figuring out exactly how these creatures are able to produce such low frequency sounds. Understanding how these animals communicate could help us prevent them from becoming any more of an endangered species.